Method for determining restored scanning position

ABSTRACT

A method for position restoration. By comparing the graphic data and the restored graphic data, the graphic data closest to the restored graphic data is selected. Therefore, the graphic data scanned subsequently is correctly connected to the restored graphic data to avoid the missing line or repetition of graphic data.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This is a Continuation Patent Application of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 10/064,907, filed Aug. 28, 2002.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates in general to a method for determining restoredposition, and more particular, to a restoration method to avoid missingline and image repetition.

RELATED ART OF THE INVENTION

Due to advancing and fast-developing electronic techniques, theelectronic industry has become one of the most important industries inmodern society. Many high performance calculating systems areconsequently being produced, and more and more electronic products arebeing used in daily life. In recent years, the growing processing speedand data storage capacity of the processor has greatly enhanced theperformance of image processing, while the image processor such as theoptical scanner or digital camera have become widely applied.

In the current operating process of the scanner, the graphic datagenerating speed is far faster than the data transmission speed betweenthe scanner and the host, and therefore the graphic data scanned by thescanner requires a place for temporary storage. Such place for temporarystorage is called a buffer, which ranges between about 32 Kbytes toabout 512 Kbytes.

The faster the graphic data is generated; the more graphic data isstored in the buffer. When the buffer is full of the graphic data, thescanner has to stop scanning. If the scan continues under suchcircumstances, the graphic data will be lost, or operation problems mayoccur.

When the scanner head is performing scanning, the scanning process hasto be stopped if the buffer is filled with the graphic data. Generallyspeaking, the stopped position is called the restored position. To alloweach area of the document to have the same exposure time, the scannerhead has a constant speed during scanning. Thus, the scanner head has tomove backward with a certain distance. When the is completely emptied,the scanner head proceeds to the previously stopped position, that is,the restored position, to continue scanning. The scanning speed has toreach the previous scanning speed to result in a stable performance.

The procedure from filling the buffer with the graphic data, stoppingscanning, the scanner head moving backward and restoring to the restoredposition and starting scanning is called smearing.

The smearing procedure is normally determined by the low transmissionspeed of interface connected to the host, such as the SCSI, USB and EPP.Alternatively, it also occurs when the computer host is too busy withother operation processes to read data from the interface. As a result,the graphic data is accumulated in the buffer until it is completelyfilled to cause smearing.

In the above smearing procedure, while returning to the restoredposition after moving backward, the scanner head may not return to theexact restored position due to the inertia effect or mechanic error ofthe scanner; therefore missing line and repetition of graphic data mayoccur.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a method for determining the restoredposition to avoid missing line and image repetition.

The method for determining the restored position provided by the presentinvention includes the following steps. In the first step, a scannerhead moves along a first direction to scan a document. In the secondstep, the scanner head stops moving, and the position where the scannerhead stops is defined as a restored position. Meanwhile, the data of thedocument located at the restored position is scanned by the scannerhead, while the scanned data is defined as the restored graphic data. Inthe third step, the scanner head moves to a second direction opposing tothe first direction with a first distance. In the fourth step, thescanner head moves along the first direction with a second distance toreach an initial scanning position, where the second distance is smallerthan the first distance. In the fifth step, after moving along thesecond direction with the second distance, the scanner head proceeds ina stepping manner to scan a plurality of corresponding graphic data. Inthe sixth step, being compared to the restored graphic data, the scannedgraphic data closest is selected and defined as the connecting graphicdata. In the seventh step, the graphic data subsequent to the connectinggraphic data is connected to the restored data.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, an additional stepfor erasing the scanned graphic data prior to the connecting graphicdata is required, while the connecting graphic data can be used toreplace the restored graphic data. In addition, while performing thethird step, the first distance includes 36 steps. That is, the scannerhead moves 36 steps along the second direction. While performing thefourth step, the scanner head moves 34 steps along the first direction.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the restored graphic datacomprises a plurality of standard pixels, and each scanned graphic datacomprises a plurality of pixels. While performing the sixth step, a partof the standard pixels is used as the comparison reference to comparewith a part of the pixels of each graphic data in the correspondingpositions. Alternatively, while performing the sixth step, all thestandard pixels can be used as the comparison reference to compare tothe pixels of each of the graphic data in the corresponding position.

Accordingly, the present invention compares the scanned graphic datawith the restored graphic data to select the graphic data closest to therestored graphic data. The selected graphic data scanned subsequentlycan thus be connected with the restored graphic data correctly.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These, as well as other features of the present invention, will becomemore apparent upon reference to the drawings wherein:

FIGS. 1 and 2 are process flows showing the method for determiningrestored position according to the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic drawing showing the arrangement of the standardpixels of the restored graphic data in one embodiment of the presentinvention; and

FIG. 4 is a schematic drawing showing the arrangement of the pixels ofthe graphic data.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, schematic diagrams illustrating a method todetermine restored position in one preferred embodiment of the presentinvention are shown. In FIG. 1, when the scanner (not shown) isscanning, the scanner head moves along a first direction 180, where themovement of the scanner head is in a stepping manner. The scannedgraphic data is then stored in the buffer (not shown) of the scanner.When the buffer has insufficient capacity, the scanner head stopsmoving. The position where the scanner head stops is defined as therestored position 110. The data of the document scanned by the scannerhead at the restored position 110 is defined as the restored graphicdata.

The scanner head then moves with a first distance along a seconddirection to reach an initial position 130. For example, in a steppingmanner, the scanner head moves 36 steps to reach the initial position130. The second direction 190 is an opposite direction to the firstdirection 180 in this embodiment.

Referring to FIG. 2, after the scanner head reaches the initial position130, the scanner head moves along the first direction 180 with a seconddistance 140 to reach an initial scanning position 150. The seconddistance 140 is smaller than the first distance 120. The scanner headobtains a graphic data by scanning at the initial scanning position 150,and such graphic data is defined as the initial graphic data. It isappreciated that before reaching the initial scanning position 150,sufficient capacity of the buffer of the scanner is required to storethe subsequent scanned graphic data. For the relationship between theremaining capacity of the buffer and the movement of the scanner headrefer to the Taiwanese Patent No. 432861; whereby the scanning speed canbe increased.

After the scanner head moves with the second distance 140 along-thefirst direction 180, the scanner head continues moving along the firstdirection 180 and scans the document 110 until he buffer is again shortof capacity. The scanner head proceeds in a stepping manner. A graphicdata is scanned for each step that the scanner head steps forward. Inone embodiment, the scanner head steps many steps to various positionssuch as the first to eighth positions 152, 154, 156, 158, 160, 162, 164and 166. Corresponding to the first to eighth positions 152 to 166,first to eighth graphic data are scanned, respectively.

After the scanner head starts scanning, a comparison step is performed.That is, the scanned graphic data such as the first to the eighthgraphic data are compared to the restored graphic data, respectively,among which the one closest to the restored graphic data, for example,the second graphic data, is selected as the connecting graphic data.

After realizing that the second graphic data is the one closest to therestored graphic data, the third graphic data is connected to therestored graphic data. The initial graphic data, the first graphic dataand the second graphic data are removed. Therefore, the subsequentlyscanned graphic data can be correctly connected to the previouslyscanned graphic data without the problems of missing line and imagerepetition. Alternatively, the restored graphic data can also bereplaced by the second graphic data.

Referring to FIGS. 3 and 4, FIG. 3 schematically shows arrangement ofthe standard pixels of the restored graphic data, and FIG. 4schematically shows arrangement of the pixels of the scanned graphicdata. As shown in FIG. 3, the restored graphic data 200 comprises aplurality of standard pixels 202, while in FIG. 4, each of the scannedgraphic data 300 comprises a plurality of pixels 302. During thecomparison procedure, a part of the standard pixels 202 can be used asthe comparison reference to respectively compare a part of the pixels302 for each of the graphic data 300. The part of the pixels to becompared includes parts of the pixels of the initial graphic data, thefirst to the fourth graphic data, while the pixels 302 to be compared tothe standards pixels 202 are in the positions corresponding to those ofthe standard pixels 302, respectively. For example, the one hundredth totwo hundredth pixels 302 are compared to the one hundredth to the twohundredth standard pixels 202. Alternatively, all of the standard pixels202 can also be used as the comparison reference to respectively compareeach of the pixels 302 of each graphic data. Again, the pixels 302 arecompared to the standard pixels 202 in the corresponding positions.

According to the above, the present invention selects a closest graphicdata of a restored graphic data by comparing the scanned graphic datawith the restored graphic data, such that the subsequently scannedgraphic data can be correctly connected to avoid the missing line anddata repetition.

Other embodiments of the invention will appear to those skilled in theart from consideration of the specification and practice of theinvention disclosed herein. It is intended that the specification andexamples are to be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope andspirit of the invention being indicated by the following claims.

1.-6. (canceled)
 7. A method, comprising: moving a scanning head in afirst direction to obtain first image data; designating a portion of thefirst image data as connecting image data; moving the scanning head inthe first direction to obtain second image data, the second image dataincluding at least a portion of said connecting image data; andcombining at least a portion of the first and second image data based,at least in part, on a comparison of the connecting image data includedin said first image data with the connecting image data included in saidsecond image data.
 8. The method of claim 7, further comprising movingthe scanning head in a second direction opposite said first directionprior to obtaining said second image data.
 9. The method of claim 8,wherein at least a portion of the second image data includes image datathat is also included in said first image data.
 10. The method of claim7, and further comprising determining said comparison by combining theconnecting data of said first image data with the connecting data ofsaid second image data.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the combinedfirst and second image data comprises third image data.
 12. The methodof claim 11, wherein the third image data comprises a complete image ofthe document.
 13. The method of claim 7, wherein the first image datacomprises a first plurality of pixel values, and the second image datacomprises a second plurality of pixel values, and wherein comparingcomprises comparing a portion of the second plurality of pixel values toa portion of the first plurality of pixel values.
 14. The method ofclaim 7, wherein the connecting data comprises image data obtained neara stopping point of the scanning head.
 15. A method, comprising:performing a first scan of a document to obtain first image data for aportion of the document; designating a portion of the first image dataas connecting data; performing a second scan of the document to obtainsecond image data for a portion of the document, at least a portion ofthe second image data including the same image data as obtained fromsaid first scan; and combining the first and second image data by use ofthe connecting data to form a third image.
 16. The method of claim 15,wherein said combining comprises combining the first image data with theportion of the second image data not including the same image data asobtained from said first scan.
 17. The method of claim 15, wherein thethird image comprises a complete image of the document.
 18. The methodof claim 15, wherein the connecting data comprises image data obtainednear a stopping point of a scanning head after the first scan.
 19. Anarticle comprising: a storage medium having stored thereon instructionsthat, when executed, result in: moving a scanning head along a firstdirection to obtain first image data; stopping the scanning head at astopping point, and designating a portion of the obtained image data asconnecting image data; moving the scanning head along the firstdirection to obtain second image data, the second image data includingat least a portion of said connecting image data; comparing theconnecting image data included in said first image data with theconnecting image data included in said second image data; and combiningat least a portion of the first and second image data based on thecomparing.
 20. The article of claim 19, wherein the instructions, whenexecuted, further result in: moving the scanning head a second directionopposite said first direction prior to obtaining said second image data.21. The article of claim 19, wherein the instructions, when executed,further result in: combining the connecting data of said first imagedata with the connecting data of said second image data.
 22. The articleof claim 19, wherein the combined first and second image data comprisesthird image data.
 23. The article of claim 22, wherein the third imagedata comprises a complete image of the document.
 24. The article ofclaim 19, wherein the first image data comprises a first plurality ofpixel values, and the second image data comprises a second plurality ofpixel values, and wherein the instructions, when further executed,further result in: comparing a portion of the second plurality of pixelvalues to a portion of the first plurality of pixel values.
 25. Thearticle of claim 19, wherein the connecting data comprises image dataobtained near the stopping point.
 26. An article comprising: a storagemedium, having stored thereon instructions, that, when executed, resultin: performing a first scan of a document to obtain first image data fora portion of the document; designating a portion of the first image dataas connecting data; performing a second scan of the document to obtainsecond image data for a portion of the document, at least a portion ofthe second image data including the same image data as obtained fromsaid first scan; and combining the first and second image data by use ofthe connecting data to form a third image.
 27. The article of claim 26,wherein the instructions, when further executed, further results in:combining the first image data with the portion of the second image datanot including the same image data as obtained from said first scan. 28.The article of claim 26, wherein the third image comprises a completeimage of the document.
 29. The article of claim 26, wherein theconnecting data comprises image data obtained near the stopping point.